Prominent ethical concerns: Harm

Prominent ethical concerns: Coercion

Prominent ethical concerns: Justice

Other concerns

Other concerns: Professional ethics

• Pursuit and communication of scientific knowledge

  • Honesty when generating and presenting data
  • Methodological rigor
  • Transparency (to both general public and scientific society)

Institutional review

• Code of Federal Regulations: The Common Rule

• Creates Institutional Review Boards (IRBs; Human Subjects Committees) and specifies their jurisdiction and how they are to be constituted

• Required of institutions that receive federal funding, and federal funding can be jeopardized by violations

Research ethics vs. institutional review

• Institutional review boards focus primarily on the well-being of human subjects

  • Some are also concerned about conflicts-of-interest and proper disclosure of financial ties
  • Some are also concerned with legal or regulatory restrictions on 501c(3) entities: special relevance to political science research that may involve “electioneering”

Research ethics vs. institutional review

• Critics argue that unethical research could be approved by a review board because they are not, fundamentally, ethics review boards

Common Rule: What is research?

“Research means a systematic investigation, including research development, testing, and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge. Activities that meet this definition constitute research for purposes of this policy, whether or not they are conducted or supported under a program that is considered research for other purposes.”

Common Rule: Human subjects

Human subject means a living individual about whom an investigator (whether professional or student) is conducting research:

1. Obtains information or biospecimens through intervention or interaction with the individual, and, uses, studies, or analyzes the information or biospecimens; or

2. Obtains, uses, studies, analyzes, or generates identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens.

Common Rule: Risks and vulnarability

“Minimal risk means that the probability and magnitude of harm or discomfort anticipated in the research are not greater in and of themselves than those ordinarily encountered in daily life or during the performance of routine physical or psychological examinations or tests.”

Common Rule: Informed consent

In order for an IRB to waive or alter consent… the IRB must find and document that:

1. The research involves no more than minimal risk to the subjects;

2. The research could not practicably be carried out without the requested waiver or alteration;

3. If the research involves using identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens, the research could not practicably be carried out without using such information or biospecimens in an identifiable format;

4. The waiver or alteration will not adversely affect the rights and welfare of the subjects; and;

5. Whenever appropriate, the subjects or legally authorized representatives will be provided with additional pertinent information after participation.

Exempt and expedited

• Exempt research

  • Tests of ordinary education practices that ensure confidentiality
  • Benign interventions: behavioral interventions are brief in duration, harmless, painless, not physically invasive, not likely to have a significant adverse lasting impact on the subjects, and the investigator has no reason to think the subjects will find the interventions offensive or embarrassing
  • Taste testing

Is it ethical?

• If you would be reviewing ethics of the following projects, would you approve it as is, request a modification (what exactly?), or halt it?

  • Participants sign up for a study on news readership habits. The researcher subtly modifies the political content in newsletters they receive to assess changes in their political opinions.
  • Conducting anonymous interviews with individuals who attended recent demonstrations, some of which involved violence, to understand motivations behind political protests.
  • Distributing questionnaires to high school students about their views on controversial political issues, offering extra credit as an incentive.
  • In a lab setting, participants are shown graphic images from war zones to study the impact on their political attitudes.
  • Researchers study emails between politicians that were released without authorization, aiming to understand decision-making processes within political parties.
  • Researchers travel to areas with ongoing political conflict to interview locals about their experiences.

In practice: Consent

• (From APSA Guidelines) In general, when seeking consent, researchers should usually communicate:

  • researcher name and affiliation (and contact information when appropriate)
  • the general purpose of the research
  • an explanation of what participation entails
  • potential risks to participants
  • potential benefits to participants and others (or clarification that none are expected)
  • whether and how identities and data will be protected
  • sources of financial support for the research (this is essential for participants to assess risk in some settings, including conflict zones or polarized political settings)
  • any other information relevant to the study, setting, or context.

In practice: Consent

• For those doing human subjects project, please attach draft consent form to your final write-up!

In practice: Debriefing

• Sometimes your research design requires to withhold crucial information from subjects during consent.

  • Examples: Withhold treatment from subjects without letting them know, misrepresent purposes of the study, lie to subjects about what they will have to do.

In practice: Training and submission

• Vandy is a bit complicated: Has two separate procedures for domestic and international projects

  • More information here